Do You Believe Most Tea Sold In Bags, "Tea Bags" Are Worthless?

I’m new to drinking tea. I went to a supermarket and got a generic brand name green tea bags. I was reading about tea and found articles saying that most tea bags are just “tea dust” and one blogger said that most tea bags are worthless. The best thing to buy is loose tea or whole leaf tea. I was wondering what the tea community thought?

This is complicated….Tea bags mostly are crud… tea sachets can be decent, but are still never going to reach the flavor of a properly brewed loose leaf. Tea bags are mostly either dust or fannings, sometimes it is the leftovers, sometimes they are intentionally cut that way. Either way not good.

I had some sachets recently that were far better than I would have expected. They are still more broken up than I usually like but at least they mostly tasted right.

You dont have to go full in, get a cheap basket strainer at either a local tea shop or amazon, they are less than 10$. You will never look at a tea bag again.

I was wondering what your opinion is of Mighty Leaf Tea? I talked to their representative and he claimed they put whole leaf tea in pyramid pouches. They also sell loose leaf tea. According to the representative the whole leaf tea bags are just as good and effective as their loose leaf. Of course, he is paid to say this. What is your opinion?

Yes Sachets and Pyramids from high quality makers can be the same leaves they sell whole, but they are taking the choice of how much leaf to use away from you.

Here is a question, when you go to a resturant, do you prefer if they give you condiments in packages which decide the amount you can use, or do you prefer a bottle where you can decide how much to use?

Sachets and Pyramids arent worthless, but they arent as good as whole leaf.

Whole leaf in sachets is weird. They don’t release as much flavor due to being cramped in the tea bag OR they put less leaf in. The reason the chop up the tea for bags is to get more flavor fast, and less leaf expansion.

There are excellent bagged teas out there, but honestly at that level it is cheaper to just buy loose leaf as you are paying extra for them to bag it. I would rec Harney and Sons, Teaave, Rishi, Lupicia as good tea bags (but all cheaper to get loose leaf)

You can buy loose bags to fill (tsac is one brand), get a basket in mug infuser, or travel tumbler.

I consider the amount of waste tea bags produce to be bad too. Those pyramids are the worst as they are plastics that don’t break down very easily.

I highly recommend to anyone who doesnt want to gongfu to just use a basket strainer.. simple, easy, cheap and makes incredibly good tea with a minimum of effort. And for some tea’s even brewed western style a second brew is possible, something a tea bag or sachet cant do.

If you enjoy tea bags, I won’t stop you from using them, but in general, good teas don’t come in a bag. Learn to brew loose leaf tea and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it much more. I won’t name names, but most chain tea shops overcharge for tea that is fair quality at best. Try looking around online for loose leaf tea. If possible, find a site with samples so you can get a sense of what kind of tea you enjoy most.

While most supermarket tea bags are low quality there are a few exceptions. One I would mention is Lupica. While they are not a supermarket brand, to the best of my knowledge the tea in their teabags is the same as their loose tea. There is also the fact that some supermarket tea bags are a little better than simply dust or Lipton.

In general, grocery stores don’t stock the best tea, though there will always be exceptions. I like Mighty Leaf teas pretty well — but for that price, they better be good! If you’re comparing teas of equal quality, the loose leaf actually tends to be cheaper. Harney and Sons offers several of their teas in both bagged and loose form, and notice how many more servings you get if you buy it loose.